Eddie Lampert's lastest investing portfolio

Billionaire investor and Sears Holdings Corp. Chairman Edward Lampert acquired shares of two homebuilders and a mortgage lender during the first quarter and added a 6-million-share stake in student lender SLM Corp., according to a quarterly regulatory filing.

As of Mar 31 issued May 14, 2008

comprehensive quarterly comparison

Acxiom (ACXM, no change)
Mar 31: 3,293,989 shares
Value: $39 million

AutoNation (AN, increased)
Dec 31: 58,526,358
Mar 31: 66,624,115
Value: $997 million

AutoZone (AZO, no change)
Mar 31: 22,006,790
Vale: $2.5 billion

CIT Group (CIT, new position)
Mar 31: 3,925,000
Value: $46 million

Citigroup Inc (C, no change)
Mar 31: 19,083,800
Value: $408 million

Centex Corp (CTX, new position)
Mar 31: 747,500
Value: $18 million

Home Depot (HD, increased)
Dec 31:16,685,679
Mar 31: 22,762,646
Value: $636 million

PHH Corp (PHH, new position)
Mar 31: 1,430,068
Value: $25 million

Sears Holdings (SHLD, no change)
Dec 31: 65,639,184
Value: $6.7 billion

SLM Corp (SLM, new position)
Mar 31: 6,018,100
Value: $121 million

Eddie Lampert increases AutoNation stake to 37.9%

"Billionaire investor Edward Lampert has raised his stake in AutoNation Inc (AN), the No. 1 U.S. auto dealership group, to nearly 38 percent, according to federal regulatory filings.

Lampert, who is also chairman of Sears Holdings Corp (SHLD), bought 383,500 shares on April 30 for prices ranging from $15.89 to $16 per share, raising holdings under his control to about 67.6 million shares."-Stock Article Link

Personally I don't see the attraction to this stock. It's high in debt, low in ROE....time to read the transcript and see if I can find anything interesting...Earning Transcript Link

Recent Insider Buys

30-Apr-08 LAMPERT EDWARD S
Beneficial Owner (10% or more) 344,113 Indirect Purchase at $15.89 - $16 per share. $5,487,0002

30-Apr-08 LAMPERT EDWARD S
Beneficial Owner (10% or more) 39,387 Indirect Purchase at $15.98 - $16 per share. $630,0002

29-Apr-08 MIGOYA CARLOS A
Director 5,000 Direct Purchase at $16.17 per share. $80,850

29-Apr-08 LAMPERT EDWARD S
Beneficial Owner (10% or more) 234,033 Indirect Purchase at $15.89 - $16 per share. $3,732,0002

29-Apr-08 LAMPERT EDWARD S
Beneficial Owner (10% or more) 5,967 Indirect Purchase at $15.89 - $15.98 per share. $95,0002

28-Apr-08 LAMPERT EDWARD S
Beneficial Owner (10% or more) 190,056 Indirect Purchase at $15.62 - $16 per share. $3,005,0002

28-Apr-08 LAMPERT EDWARD S
Beneficial Owner (10% or more) 61,432 Indirect Purchase at $15.81 - $16 per share. $977,0002

28-Apr-08 LAMPERT EDWARD S
Beneficial Owner (10% or more) 120,565 Indirect Purchase at $15.62 - $15.99 per share. $1,906,0002

Eddie Lampert Video to the Shareholder Annual Meeting

"Highlights are

- Lampert doesn't see a turnaround so far in consumer economy and doesn't foresee one this year.

- He hasn't seen a benefit as yet from interest rate cuts but does think that there will be a benefit.

- He thinks the market is flooded with too many stores being opened by competitors.

- Brands seem to be the new bet for Sears--are brands/merchandising replacing Lampert's emphasis on the underlying real estate play?

- There is a fundamental shift in how consumers shop. Part of that is due to increasingly specialized brick and mortar as well as online retailers.

"-Stock Article Link

Eddie Lampert raises stake in AutoNation (AN) to 37.2%

Hedge fund manager and Sears Holdings Corp. Chairman Edward Lampert has increased his stake in AutoNation to 37.2 percent.-Stock Article Link

Here's Eddie Lampert's buys in March. He doesn't diversify much as most of his money is in SHLD and AN.

11-Mar-08 LAMPERT EDWARD S
Beneficial Owner (10% or more) 564,972 Indirect Purchase at $14 - $14.25 per share. $7,980,0002

11-Mar-08 LAMPERT EDWARD S
Beneficial Owner (10% or more) 33,728 Indirect Purchase at $14.20 - $14.25 per share. $480,0002

10-Mar-08 LAMPERT EDWARD S
Beneficial Owner (10% or more) 95,840 Indirect Purchase at $13.80 - $14.05 per share. $1,335,0002

10-Mar-08 LAMPERT EDWARD S
Beneficial Owner (10% or more) 603,160 Indirect Purchase at $13.73 - $14.05 per share. $8,378,0002

7-Mar-08 LAMPERT EDWARD S
Beneficial Owner (10% or more) 76,496 Indirect Purchase at $14.01 - $14.05 per share. $1,073,0002

7-Mar-08 LAMPERT EDWARD S
Beneficial Owner (10% or more) 670,504 Indirect Purchase at $13.84 - $14.05 per share. $9,350,0002

3-Mar-08 LAMPERT EDWARD S
Beneficial Owner (10% or more) 75,392 Indirect Purchase at $14.44 - $14.7 per share. $1,098,0002

3-Mar-08 LAMPERT EDWARD S
Beneficial Owner (10% or more) 245,476 Indirect Purchase at $14.15 - $14.7 per share. $3,541,0002

3-Mar-08 LAMPERT EDWARD S
Beneficial Owner (10% or more) 426,132 Indirect Purchase at $14.15 - $14.53 per share. $6,111,0002

Click the Eddie Lampert Label below for more info...

Eddie Lampert's message to Sears shareholders (SHLD)

Eddie Lampert answers a lot of questions that shareholders are thinking.

"How would Kmart compete against the more profitable and better capitalized Wal-Mart and Target? How would Sears compete with Home Depot and Lowe’s as well as Best Buy, Kohl’s and JC Penney? Why would we believe that we could do something that so many others had tried with mixed results?....

it is not clear that heavy expenditures of capital guarantee either short or long term success. Like any investment of capital, the return on that capital over time will determine its wisdom....

Before the merger, Kmart earned almost $1 billion in EBITDA and had approximately 100 million fully diluted shares outstanding while the combined company earned over $2.5 billion of Adjusted EBITDA in 2007 and today has approximately 132 million fully diluted shares outstanding and $1.6 billion of cash, after having deployed roughly $9 billion of cash during the past three years. We are proud of the progress we’ve made but do not believe we have played up to our full potential yet...

Finally, our cash flow generation remained strong as we generated $1.6 billion of operating cash flow in 2007, which exceeds the $1.4 billion generated last year. We ended the year with $1.6 billion in cash, as we deployed $4.3 billion in 2007 as follows:

• $2.9 billion for share repurchases;
• $600 million for net reductions of debt;
• $580 million for capital expenditure reinvestments in our business; and
• $220 million contributed to our legacy pension obligations.

Some have wondered why we haven’t invested more money in our stores. This is a legitimate question. In theory, a company can always invest more money in its operations, but, when we make an investment we expect to earn an appropriate return. Since we have invested a significant amount of capital in hundreds of stores, we have some good data to work with to better understand what works and what does not. In some cases, our investments have led to higher earnings in the stores in which we invested and we continue to make investments like those today. In other cases, however, the investment has not led to acceptably improved performance. ...

Let’s look at a hypothetical example. Imagine that we invested $200 million to remodel or improve 100 stores, or $2 million per store. If the store profitability after that investment is exactly the same as before, then the $200 million investment generates 0% in return. By simply keeping our money in cash, we could have earned anywhere from 3-5% over the past several years, which is better than the 0% return in this case. The related question then becomes: why can’t you find ways to invest in your stores that generate an acceptable return? That’s exactly the problem we have been working to solve and we will continue to work until we solve it.

Pressing this point even further, some might ask, if you can’t justify investing in your stores, then how are you going to grow your business? To be clear, we are not saying that we can’t justify investing in our stores. The issue is more about the size and type of investment as well as the timing and sequencing of an investment. There are many things that a retailer can do to improve its business without the significant amounts of capital that a major remodel would require. Improving the assortment of products and services, mix of inventory, visual presentation, recruitment and training of employees, and marketing and communications to customers are all ways to generate improved performance....

Over the past three years, we have contributed approximately $800 million pre-tax to the Sears and Kmart pension plans and we currently expect to contribute several hundred million more in total over the next few years. However, we (along with the rating agencies) view this pension cost as more akin to a repayment of debt incurred years ago than an ongoing cost....."


Article Link: http://www.searsholdings.com/invest/

Eddie Lampert sells one third of his Citigroup Stake

"RBS Partners LP, an affiliate of Lampert's hedge fund ESL Investments Inc, reduced its stake 31 percent to 19.08 million shares as of Dec. 31 from 27.79 million shares as of Sept. 30, according to a Thursday filing with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission. The value of the stake fell to $561.8 million from $1.3 billion." -Stock Article Link

Lampert may be giving up on Citigroup(C) but he's adding more to AutoNation (AN)

12-Feb-08 *863,000 AN Purchase at $15.50 - $15.55 per share.
(Cost of about $13,398,000)

11-Feb-08 *412,057 AN Purchase at $15.18 - $15.5 per share.
(Cost of about $6,321,000)

Eddie Lampert Buys AutoNation Shares

Jim Cramer defends Eddie Lampert

Here's an excellent article on how the media has got it all wrong about Eddie Lampert. Jim Cramer goes on the defence.

No matter how thin you slice it, there's always two sides to every story. We just hope and pray we are on the right side. -Stock Article Link

More Eddie Lampert Bashing with Sears Holdings

The majority of analysts are totally negative with Sears (SHLD). Just read the headlines " Sears Is No Berkshire Hathaway, Just A Troubled Retailer". With estimates of $5.13 and $5.96 per fully diluted share for the year, if you give it a reasonable future p/e of 15-20, best case scenario ($6 x 20 = $120 stock for the year 2008, currently trading at $90.)

With declining same-store sales, Eddie Lampert is still buying stock, hand over fist. During the ten weeks ended January 11, 2008, SHLD repurchased 4.9 million common shares at a total cost of $513 million (or $105.46 per share) under the share repurchase program. As of January 11, 2008, remaining authorization to repurchase $223 million of common shares under the previously approved programs. I have a feeling he'll use all that up too.

If I liked it at $150, I like it now even more at $90 and it will probably go lower. There's only so much I can put in a stock (10-20% of portfolio). Analysts are rarely right so it's buy and hold and go against the herd.

Eddie Lampert continues his AutoNation appetite

Investing guru Edward Lampert has raised his stake in AutoNation again, bringing it up to 31 percent, a Thursday Securities and Exchange filing showed.

Lampert's hedge fund, ESL Investments, and related parties currently own 58.8 million shares in the Fort Lauderdale-based auto retailer, up from 55.3 million shares reported on Nov. 27.

Insider Transactions

AutoNation (AN), the largest U.S. retail auto dealer, owns and operates about 325 new
vehicle franchises in 16 states. Car retailing is a very competitive and cyclical business. With razor-thin profit margins (AutoNation is below 2%), highly leveraged inventories that depreciate rapidly, dealers must generate high volume and fast turnover. If you look at the history of AutoNation's return on equity, it's below 10% most of the time (we prefer 15% or better). -Link

Positives
-Based on the 10 year history, AutoNation has never sold below book value, currently at $18.90 book value and the stock is trading at $15.15.
-Incredible share buyback...back in 1997, it was 432 million...now it's only 183.96 million ! -Link

Negatives
-Debt/Equity is normally around 20% but currently it's 108%. Maybe it's using more debt to buy back stock. The current ratio is still the norm at around 1.00.

Eddie Lampert's letter to employees

To our Associates:

Yesterday, Sears Holdings announced our results for the third quarter of 2007. While we were not pleased with these results, much of the commentary in the media and on Wall Street following the results ignores the strength of our company and the progress that we have made. In fact, over the past several years, we are one of the few retail companies that have actually reduced our overall debt levels, while at the same time investing over $1 billion on capital expenditures, making investments in inventory for our customers, contributing significantly to our pension plans for our past and future retirees and repurchasing over $3 billion of our shares.

As Aylwin said yesterday, we cannot blame our results entirely on the retail and macro-economic environments, and we need to continue our quest to improve. At the same time, it is also the case that many retailers, including Home Depot, Lowe’s, Macy’s, Kohl’s and JC Penney, have suffered from the economic environment of the past year and have had disappointing sales and earnings results. Much of the commentary following their results focused on the difficulties in the housing markets, the overall macro environment, and the highly promotional nature of the retail environment that has existed recently. An analyst for Fitch, the credit rating agency, reacting to JC Penney’s new store openings was cited as praising JC Penney for keeping expenses under control. When other companies manage expenses carefully, it is often characterized as a sign of good management and prudence. In the case of Sears Holdings, meanwhile, expense controls are often cited as a root cause of poor performance.

Sears Holdings sells a large variety of merchandise. Many of our merchandise categories, including home appliances, tools, and lawn and garden equipment are directly related to home improvement, home maintenance and home turnover related activities. As Mike Ullman, CEO of JC Penney, was quoted recently as saying, “It’s hard to sell window coverings to homes that aren’t being built.” JC Penney reported lower income in its most recent quarter compared to last year. Kohl’s Corp. reported that its income for the past quarter was lower as well. The same goes for Home Depot and Lowe’s. All of these companies have spent enormous amounts to open new stores and to remodel existing stores and still ended up with lower earnings. Spending lots of money doesn’t always lead to the results people expect.

In fact, Sears Holdings has made significant investments and taken measured risks, including the increase in our inventory position over the past couple of years. Not all of these risks pan out and, in the case of our inventory investment, the additional inventory has not resulted in improved sales and profitability. Had the economic environment been different, certain actions may have led to different results. We are taking actions to adjust our inventory position so that, by the end of our fiscal year, we expect our inventory levels will be below the levels of the prior year.

Retail is a fickle business. Nevertheless, like any other business, by focusing on the long term, making decisions based on facts and logic, and appreciating that all decisions are based on many possible future scenarios, companies can navigate the ups and downs of the economy and the stock market to create long term value for their shareholders. That is our focus, and our goal, at Sears Holdings. We will take the actions we believe are necessary to drive value over the long term and manage the business closely and opportunistically in the short term.

We thank you for your hard work and are committed to working to deliver better results in the future. Remember, not everybody likes rooting for the underdog. It is up to us to earn their respect by our performance on the retail playing field.

Respectfully,

Edward S. Lampert
Chairman
Sears Holdings

--------------

What does this letter mean?? Either he is delusional about this turnaround or he's so pissed with the media that he will do everything in his power to make Sears a success.

Sears Holdings drops below $100

During the midday of trading, Sears (SHLD) was at $98.25. Was it really a surprise that the earnings was going to be horrible?? I mentioned to wait until the report was out. Now it's time for buy some as my average price is $142. That's a wide enough scale for me to start buying my second increment. Never buy all at once. Buy in increments.

Management has been frank in admitting mistakes. "We cannot blame our results entirely on the retail and macro-economic environments. We have much on which to improve and are working hard to do so," said Aylwin Lewis, Sears Holdings' chief executive officer and president.

"The third quarter 2006 results included $101 million in pre-tax
gains ($64 million after tax or $0.42 per diluted share) on total return
swap investments outstanding during that period."

"We repurchased 6.7 million common shares at a total cost of $0.9
billion (or $131.72 per share) under our share repurchase program during
the third quarter of fiscal 2007."

Third Quarter Press Release

He was still able to make $64 million in investment gains in such a horrible market. Even though shareholders are growing impatient, I certainly don't think Eddie Lampert has any pressure. First and foremost, he's a billionaire! So he doesn't have to take crap from no one. Secondly his ESL Investments has a 40%+ ownership of Sears. So he has free reign on whatever he wants to do. And lastly, he is a value investor. He works on the underlying business and let the stock take care of itself. By buying more stock at $131.72, tells me he still sees a lot of value.

Here is the 6 insider transactions.

1-Nov-07	REIDY J MILES Officer	15,964	Direct	Acquisition (Non Open Market) at $0 per share.	N/A
31-Oct-07	YULINSKY CORWIN Officer	436	Direct	Disposition (Non Open Market) at $134.79 per share.	$58,768
11-Oct-07	MCGUIRE MAUREEN A Officer	1,000	Direct	Sale at $141.75 per share.	$141,750
14-Aug-07	MNUCHIN STEVEN T Director	75,600	Indirect	Purchase at $137.31 - $137.6 per share.	$10,392,0002
1-Aug-07	LAMPERT EDWARD S Director	3,411,469	Indirect	Acquisition (Non Open Market)	N/A
1-Aug-07	LAMPERT EDWARD S Director	3,934,646	Indirect	Disposition (Non Open Market)	N/A

Don't forget William Ackman who heads Pershing Square Capital Management has 5 million shares of SHLD.

How would you like to lose 4.4 billion?

That is how much investing guru Eddie Lampert has lost (paper loss though) since the third quarter.

"Lampert is a 24.8 million-share owner of Citi(C). He purchased a 9.5 million-share chunk of the financial giant in the second quarter at $52.42 a share. With its closing price of $33.10 a share Friday, the stake is worth $821 million, a $500 million loss."-Stock Article Link

It takes a lot of confidence to stay concentrated in your holdings. -Stock Article Link

Robert Rubin (Lampert's mentor back when he was at Goldman Sachs) is taking more of an active role in Citigroup's revival and lets not forgot the largest shareholder, billionaire Prince Alweed hasn't bailed out of Citi yet. I'm sure Eddie is relieved that Citi sold a stake to Abu Dhabi fund for $7.5 billion infusing much need capital.

Eddie Lampert bashing with the stake in Restoration Hardware

Restoring Sales at Sears?

Investors sour on Sears stake in Restoration Hardware

This one leaves me scratching my head. The fundamentals of Restoration Hardware(RSTO) are not good. It operates over 103 retail stores and 8 outlet stores in 30 states, the District of Columbia, and Canada. I guess he's branching his store within a store concept a la Land's End and perhaps sticking with high end versus competing on price.

Time for me to visit the store.

http://www.restorationhardware.com

Will Eddie Lampert Turnaround Sears?

Says one New York hedgie: "I think that Sears will prove the ultimate trap for Lampert and his investors, and the Eddie cult will come to an ugly end."

...the retailer's real estate has considerable value that is not reflected in the stock. Add up this real estate, valuable brands like Kenmore and Craftsman, and Sears' huge appliance and home-remodeling business, and the company could have a liquidation value of more than $300 a share..

...Such turnarounds take time. As Dreher notes, retail veteran Allen Questrom took five years to revive the moribund Penney, from 2000 to 2004....

-Stock Article Link

Clearly, Sears Holdings is not the next Berkshire Hathaway. If it was, Eddie Lampert would have bought other businesses by now. His efforts are all focused on the turnaround.

Investing tips from billionaire Eddie Lampert

Learning from investing guru, Eddie Lampert.

"If I was looking at The Washington Post in 1973 or ‘74, could I have made the investment Buffett made? Can I understand what he saw?"

"I liked the idea of buying something at $ 30 if it’s worth $ 60 as opposed to buying it at $ 59 to sell at $ 60… Goldman was not in that business. We were in the business of buying at $ 59 to be worth $ 60 in a short time."

"…we have always invested on the basis that whatever we buy, if the stock market was shut down tomorrow, we’d be happy owning the position for the next five years."

"We basically ask one question: Is the price at which we are buying the business attractive relative to its long-term intrinsic value?"

Stock Article Link

Eddie Lampert's next move

Hedge fund activist William Ackman is at it again with Sears

William Ackman is an aggressive activist value investor who heads Pershing Square Capital Management, a $1.6+ billion hedge fund. Ackman takes large long positions in a concentrated portfolio of companies, then often pressures management to extract value for shareholders. In 1993, he launched Gotham Partners, eventually growing the hedge fund to over $300 million in assets. Gotham imploded in 2002 amid a series of lawsuits related to a failed merger between one of the firm's holdings.

Ackman re-emerged in late 2003 with Pershing Square, whose original investors included a subsidiary of Leucadia National Corp. (NYSE: LUK). Over the past two-plus years, Ackman has agitated for change at Wendy's International Inc. (NYSE: WEN) and McDonald's Corp. (NYSE: MCD), helping to force the former to spin off its Tim Hortons Inc. (NYSE: THI) donut chain, and the latter to buy back $1 billion in stock.

In November 2006, Ackman made news when he disclosed that Pershing Square had taken a more than 10% stake in Borders Group Inc. (NYSE: BGP - News), while simultaneously increasing its stake to over 5% in rival Barnes & Noble Inc. (NYSE: BKS - News). In December 2006, he won a battle against Eddie Lampert over Sears Holdings Corporation's (Nasdaq: SHLD) proposed acquisition of Sears Canada. SHLD was able to increase its stake in Sears Canada to 70%, but a minority shareholder group led by Pershing Square scored court and regulatory victories, prohibiting an actual takeover.

Recently Ackman bought 5 million shares in Sears. He previously owned more than 1.5 million shares of Sears as recently as March 2006, suggesting that he was attracted back to the stock this fall by the fallen share price.

William Ackman's Portfolio Holdings.

Investing Guru Eddie Lampert's Portfolio June 30, 2007

Under RBS Partners, L.P., here is what he is holding on June 30th in comparison to March 31st.

March ------------------------------------------------------ June

Company -----------------------------Shares---------------- Shares

Autozone, Inc -------------------------5,947,328-------------5,947,328
Autozone, Inc ------------------------16,059,462------------16,059,462
AutoNation, Inc -----------------------5,995,748-------------5,995,748
AutoNation, Inc.-----------------------43,794,686 -----------43,794,686
Citigroup Inc --------------------------15,244,168-----------24,808,083 (increased)
Clear Channel, Inc.-------------------- 881,100----------------0 (reduced)
Motorola, Inc. -------------------------925,000--------------625,000 (reduced)
Sears Holdings Corp. ------------------354,985---------------354,985
Sears Holdings Corp. ------------------65,016,723------------65,283,976 (increased)

Some are repeated twice because the first one is investment discretion "defined" and the second is "sole". Not sure what that means. Perhaps anyone reading this can enlighten me.

Seems Eddie Lampert is not backing away from Citigroup (C) owning $1.3 billion worth of stock. I am still a big believer of Lampert's investing abilities but not everyone thinks so...

Lampert's Bets Hit the Skids - Stock Article Link

Buy Citigroup (C) and get a 15.5% compounded rate of return

At $47.81, Citigroup, one of the biggest financial companies in the world, is a compelling buy for 5 reasons.

1. When Wallstreet found out about Eddie Lampert having a 15 million share position in Citigroup, the stock popped from $52 to $54. Now it's priced probably cheaper then when Lampert bought it.

2. You get a nice 4.5% yield for waiting for the stock to go up.

3. If the CEO Charles Prince resigns, there would be another immediate pop in the stock. He's not liked by Wallstreet.

4. Jim Cramer has a position in Citigroup for his charitable trust.

5. Current earnings per share is $4.19 compounded at 10% growth for 5 years (analyst predict 10-11% growth and in the past 10 years, the growth has been 13%) multiplied by a conservative future p/e of 12 = future stock price of $80.98 in 5 years. That's a compounded annual return 11% + 4.5% (15.50 % in total)


I've added it to the RetireRichBlog Investing Scorecard.

Motorola to Cut 4,000 More Jobs!

"The latest round of cuts means the world's No. 2 handset maker has announced plans to eliminate more than 10 percent of its work force since the start of 2007, when it became clear that two years of strong momentum behind the popular Razr phone had collapsed....

The company already is in the process of eliminating 3,500 jobs as part of a two-year cost-cutting plan to save $400 million." -Stock Article Link

With stock buys from billionaire gurus Carl Icahn and Eddie Lampert, MOT is a buy!

Eddie Lampert owns Motorola and Clear Channel stock

Billionaire Eddie Lampert is making headlines with his 15 million shares of Citigroup (C). At $54, you still get a nice 3.9% dividend. But Eddie has also accumulated 881,100 share in Clear Channel(CCU) and 925,000 in Motorola (MOT).

Eddie Lampert portfolio

"He has also been labeled the next Warren Buffett, and his investment vehicle, Sears Holdings

he has amassed a 29% average annual return consistently since he founded ESL Investments in 1988....

Lampert is a keen student of the Oracle of Omaha. Like Buffett, he has an "aggressive conservative" style....

When Kmart was on the verge of bankruptcy, he invested heavily in Kmart bonds, directing its resurrection.

After Kmart become public, its shares surged from $15 to $109...."- Full Article Link -Trade Like Hedge Fund Honcho Eddie Lampert